Is the decision of the galleries a one-off exception or is it the first sign of a radical change?
Public interest contra profitability
Museums are a relatively new achievement in the history of our civilisation. Up to the French Revolution, art treasures were mainly the private possessions of kings, princes and other members of the nobility who were the patrons of the artists of their time, commissioning them, paying them and keeping their works. It was only at the beginning of the 19th century at the time of the rising bourgeoisie that art treasures gradually began to be placed in state-financed museums where they could be viewed by the general public. This was a great step forward.
Since that time the number of museums has steadily increased. And today, given the decrease in government funding, they are in intense economic competition with one another. Faced with the need for ever more capital in a time of drastic cuts to government subsidies for the arts, they find themselves caught in the “income-from-visitors” trap. Even though museums were intended to serve the public interest and not commercial ends, they find themselves constrained to follow the model of permanent growth. This has given rise to two key consequences.
First of all, the trend to blockbuster art exhibitions whose stakes are high on the commercial art market. The operative principle here is that if it costs a lot it must be worth a lot and will thus serve to draw in the crowds. This trend means that there’s no room available for experimental concepts or lesser-known artists who don’t figure among the art scene’s galaxy of pop stars. The risk of making a loss on an exhibition is simply too great for the museums to bear.
The second consequence following on from the first is that in their efforts to finance such crowd-drawing exhibitions, many museums welcome donations by rich private individuals and companies with open arms.
Money has no smell – or does it?
Now you might be thinking that money has no smell so it doesn’t really matter where it comes from. And if it serves a good purpose like keeping works of art in museums or restoring Notre Dame, then there’s nothing wrong with it and in fact such sponsorship it’s really both cheap and effective.
And in fact for a very long time nobody was interested in where the money for the sponsorship of the arts came from and what type of consequences such sponsorship entailed. It’s only now that people are beginning to take a more critical look.
Take, for instance the group of activists who, drawing on the famous “To be, or not to be” from Shakespeare´s Hamlet, call themselves “BP or not BP”. They are investigating the sponsorship of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the British Museum by the BP oil corporation, and in particular attempts by the oil giant that have now come to light to exert influence on which special exhibitions should figure in the programme of the British Museum.
In the case of the Sackler family, the protest is directed at the fact that their sponsorship of the arts amounts to a “whitewashing” of the money they earn through their morally dubious pharmaceutical business.
And in mid-April when a fire seemed likely to destroy Notre Dame cathedral and part of the cultural heritage it contained, this triggered not only a universal wave of dismay and consternation but an unprecedented outpouring of donations from the richest families in France. In next to no time a staggering 800 million euros was donated. Undoubtedly this is of tremendous benefit to the badly damaged cathedral. And yet it prompted a wave of indignation from the French people. What is at the root of such discord?
Autonomy and diversity are at stake here
In a pluralistic society based on democratic principles, the question of the autonomy of institutions dedicated to the common good is of primary importance: only a sufficient degree of autonomy can ensure genuine diversity and encourage innovation – works not streamlined to swim with the current of the times but which might be contentious or thought-provoking. This is beneficial to an open society.
At the end of the day, this kind of sponsorship of the arts can only prevail because the public coffers are too empty to allow institutions to act freely, independent of such support.
There are many reasons for acts of generosity
All too often the fabulously rich can slip their obligation to contribute to the common good of society in the same unostentatious and altruistic way as the rest of us do. With their voluntary donations they make good on this obligation and by doing so also appear as benefactors.
Now to avoid any possible misunderstanding, let me add that it would be disingenuous and pure speculation to deny that sponsors have any true feeling for art and culture. Even so, the question of the ends served by many an act of generosity is still a valid one. Whether by a company or an individual, sponsorship is always a form of advertisement and marketing which in most cases comes in combination with an alluring write-off or tax relief scheme. This is perfectly legal and indeed from a corporate standpoint even desirable.
So without wanting to venture further into the broad field of museum financing in particular, and the arts and humanities in general, I would say that we really do need to take a much closer look at where the money for our cultural life comes from. I for one at least hope that the move taken by the Tate group of British art galleries will not prove to be a onetime event but a laudable example that in similar circumstances deserves to be followed.
A blend of cinema and art
Such a novel exhibition concept is undoubtedly geared to the ways of perception now common to our media-driven age. To claim that museums and other exhibition centres must move with the times and walk the cutting edge might just sound like blatant opportunism. And yet there’s a grain of truth to it. To ward off the spectre of dwindling numbers of visitors to museums, operators and curators need to think afresh and open up to new ideas. Obviously, as critics quite rightly say, a video projection can never hope to reach the quality of the original work. After all, this is why I travelled with OUBEYs original works to encounter people across the whole world, not with video projections of these paintings.
However, the exhibition in the Alte Münze certainly wasn’t seeking to offer some sort of second-rate substitute to an encounter with the original works. What they were rather intending to do was to use simple and relatively inexpensive means to gather the works of all these great artists together in one spot and present them in an unusual and highly entertaining manner. Cinema and art mix and mingle to create an unprecedented viewing experience in which static paintings begin to move. The accompanying music soundtrack was certainly an integral part of the presentation even though at times I found it an unnecessary distraction to the actual viewing experience.
Even so, the other people in the room were obviously taking immense pleasure in this show. They let the whole thing simply flow over them – nobody asked for explanations and nobody gave them.
Analogue and digital worlds in playful interaction
I was particularly surprised at the large numbers of young people there whom you wouldn’t normally rate as enthusiastic visitors to art exhibitions. They spread themselves out on the large beanbags in the middle of the room, lay back and watched the play of colours across the walls, occasionally passing whispered comments to one another which nobody minded at all. Had this exhibition concept perhaps found a way to make the art of the past 150 years appealing to today’s young generation?
The grown-ups too were obviously enjoying this relaxed unconstrained atmosphere and kept changing their places to get a fresh angle on the art on the walls. What the whole show might have lacked in deeper intellectual substance, it more than made up for in the immediate sensuality of pure enjoyment.
When classical painting from the analogue world can be transferred to the digital world in such a spectacularly successful manner, then seriousness and entertainment no longer stand in contradiction but embrace and complement each other. And when such an approach leads to more people finding interest and taking pleasure in art then the venture has certainly fulfilled its purpose. At the end of the day the way will always lead back to the original works and this, I think, is just as it should be.